Must say, really digging Deathsmiles. Once you get past the fact that you're playing as a flying teenage girl who is dressed like a hooker. The game is pretty tight, made me pick up two other Cave titles (DoDonPachi Resurrection and Akai Katana). It's good that they got a release over here.

So I've played the new XCOM for the first time today. First impressions: it's a good game. It's not nearly as immersive as its predecessors, but I guess the actual gameplay and tactics make up for it, and the battles can escalate in certain missions (one was a hostage rescue with enemy reinforcements, I thought that was quite cool). I'm playing the game on Classic difficulty and iron man mode, and I expected it to be moderately challenging. Man, did I get my ass handed to me on the 4th mission, and by Sectoids too!

Two things that have bugged me so far. First, soldier loadout. You get a maximum of 4 items that you can carry: 2 weapons, body armor, and 1 misc slot. You have to choose between a grenade, a stun gun, a medikit, a protective shirt, a scope, etc... Why is that? Why can't I wear the fucking shirt, put the stun gun on my belt, the grenade in a pouch, the medikit in a backpack, and the scope on my rifle? The restriction doesn't make sense. In the other games you could arm your soldiers to the teeth, while taking care balancing their loadout so that it doesn't exceed the maximum weight they could carry, which was relative to their strength stat (btw stats seem to be gone?). Here, you only get to carry 4 things, and that's it. Second, the game's quite the resource hog, my graphics card temperature peaked at 85°C. Also, the "thin men" look... ridiculous.

Overall, there's a lot of room for improvement. It's also good news to hear that the developers designed the game in a way that makes it mod-friendly.

Just picked up Doom 3: BFG Edition for PS3 yesterday. I'm very happy with this product. The updated graphics look nice, and I like that they made it so that you can have your flashlight and your weapon out at the same time. But what I've really been enjoying is going back and playing Doom and Doom 2, which are included. Sadly, I never got to play those games as a kid (religious parents, extremely anti-video-game dad, etc.), so it's nice seeing what I missed.

So I've played the new XCOM for the first time today. First impressions: it's a good game. It's not nearly as immersive as its predecessors, but I guess the actual gameplay and tactics make up for it, and the battles can escalate in certain missions (one was a hostage rescue with enemy reinforcements, I thought that was quite cool). I'm playing the game on Classic difficulty and iron man mode, and I expected it to be moderately challenging. Man, did I get my ass handed to me on the 4th mission, and by Sectoids too!

Two things that have bugged me so far. First, soldier loadout. You get a maximum of 4 items that you can carry: 2 weapons, body armor, and 1 misc slot. You have to choose between a grenade, a stun gun, a medikit, a protective shirt, a scope, etc... Why is that? Why can't I wear the fucking shirt, put the stun gun on my belt, the grenade in a pouch, the medikit in a backpack, and the scope on my rifle? The restriction doesn't make sense. In the other games you could arm your soldiers to the teeth, while taking care balancing their loadout so that it doesn't exceed the maximum weight they could carry, which was relative to their strength stat (btw stats seem to be gone?). Here, you only get to carry 4 things, and that's it. Second, the game's quite the resource hog, my graphics card temperature peaked at 85°C. Also, the "thin men" look... ridiculous.

Overall, there's a lot of room for improvement. It's also good news to hear that the developers designed the game in a way that makes it mod-friendly.

Here comes a reaction shot (get it? get it?!.. oh nevermind):First off, I'd suggest dialing down the difficulty to non ironman normal, just so you get to experience the workings of the game (a.k.a. priorities in research/manufacturing/base management etc, what perks work best with your playstyle, what squad arrangements you prefer), even if you ironman'd UFO Defense on hard. Trust me, if your ass was handled to you on the 4-th mission, when your first very hard terror mission comes by you wouldn't even remember you had an ass (and that's assuming you even live to see it).

Secondly - I don't know what exactly do you mean by "immersion", but if we're talking about addiction in other words, this game will consume your soul. Completely. Also, I do love the narrative touches they've added into the game (now, instead of numbers in a counter, both your engineers and scientists have a face with a character along with interactions between other faces and each other).

Thirdly - the soldier loadouts are a game play mechanic. Grenades do set damage at a limited range and with no critical hits, but are 100% accurate upon hit and also destroy the enemy's cover in a controlled fashion. Arc Throwers allow you to stun enemies and interrogate them later, earning you significant research credits, and also allow you to keep the enemies' weaponry intact for research and future use (so you won't need to spend lots of money and resources to craft them), but have a very short range, putting your soldiers at a great risk if the stun doesn't connect. The Nanosuit adds 2 health to your meter, which may or may not make the difference between life and death even with a high end armor but it occupies your only inventory slot. Medikits are... medikits. So, as you can see, it's not only about picking an item, it's about priorities, as every item has its benefits as well as drawbacks (and in full accordance to Murphy, the item you didn't pick is the one you'll need when shit starts to clog the fan). Does it make any realistic sense? Well no, but neither does turn-based combat, mind you.

Overall, I get a gist from your post that you were expecting a 1:1 remake out of this game, an attitude I run into way more often than I'd like to admit and completely fail to understand. I mean - if you want a direct remake, why not play UFO Defense instead? If you want the original but with different maps - why not play Terror from the Deep? Or Extraterrestrials? Or the up and coming Xenonauts? What Firaxis did to the X-COM franchise with XCOM: EU is similar to what Yager did to Spec Ops with Spec Ops: The Line - they took the IP along with its core elements, and essentially made their own game out of them, something I'd expect from any development company with dignity. The only issues I have with the game are purely technical (bugs and at times crappy UI), and I'll say it with zero hyperbole in mind - I'm looking at my personal GOTY here, and can't simply think of any other game that might potentially topple it.

Does it make any realistic sense? Well no, but neither does turn-based combat, mind you.

Not to intrude on the discussion, but this sort of reasoning completely misses the point. Games will always have certain unrealistic mechanics by necessity, gamers don't mind. That doesn't excuse mechanics that really are far more artificial and restrictive then they ought to be in context.When that context is a game that present complex tactics problems, the more options the better. As long as the game is balanced around the possibility of soldiers having more equipment, (Ie, you couldn't beat the game if you don't make full use of it) it really doesn't remove any of the decision making, on the contrary.

There's little discussion here to be honest (since kingnuuuur - or anyone who also played the game for that matter - hasn't offered a rebuttal or additional insight) but rather an attempt to provoke one, so no worries. Now, the notion that games can't be entirely true-to-life is quite an obvious statement, otherwise they'll lose their appeal (who would want to pay for a game in which the death of a protagonist will be punished by being unable to play the game ever again, for example?). That was exactly my point when addressing kingnuuuur's statement that "the restriction [of the amount of items one can carry] doesn't make sense" - it doesn't make any logical sense, but it isn't supposed to, because it's a game. It does make sense as a gameplay mechanic though.

As far as context goes - that said restriction is one of these complex tactical problems. There's no One Item To Rule Them All here, but a selected few, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Choose one, then design your playthrough accordingly. Your soldier ranked up? That's nice, here are two perks - choose one, then design your playthrough accordingly. There are six vacant spots in a squads but only five available classes. Fill these spots as you like, then design your playthrough accordingly. See how much opportunity for a truly tactical and smart play is there, as opposed to "arm 20 soldiers to their teeth as long as they can carry it, then proceed"?

As far as context goes - that said restriction is one of these complex tactical problems. There's no One Item To Rule Them All here, but a selected few, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Choose one, then design your playthrough accordingly. Your soldier ranked up? That's nice, here are two perks - choose one, then design your playthrough accordingly. There are six vacant spots in a squads but only five available classes. Fill these spots as you like, then design your playthrough accordingly. See how much opportunity for a truly tactical and smart play is there, as opposed to "arm 20 soldiers to their teeth as long as they can carry it, then proceed"?

How exactly do you conclude this element of choice and smart play isn't there in the old system? you phrase it in such a way to suggest there isn't ("arm to the teeth as long as they can carry it") but all you need to do is ask "with what?" to see it's not that simple.

I didn't say it was simple, but rather more simple. The burden limit in the old game was usually lenient, allowing you to bring basically anything you wanted to and then some. Couple that with the ability to assemble squads in the double digits and the ability to pick up your late comrade's weaponry from the spot he died at - the importance of the said choice loses some of its value, and gains more of a strategic edge rather than a tactical one (read - resource management. Read - the answer to "with what?" can usually be simplified to "with the best weaponry I can afford to buy").

To clarify, I am not taking pot shots at a game I consider as one of the bestest evarz as much as the next guy, but merely trying to make a case why the system of the remake are decent (and sometimes even better than the original).

Alternating between Deus Ex Human Revolution and Dishonored is a very bad idea.

On the PS3 for Dishonored, pushing O goes into stealth mode. So here I am in Deus Ex eavesdropping on conversation between two normal civilians. One guy is trying to get the girl to go out and see the city with him. I figure it's appropriate to get into character and go into stealth mode, cause I'm listening into their conversation. So I push O thinking Dishonored controls.

Sure enough I just give the girl a hard right out of nowhere and knock her down and everyone around me is all scared and cowering. AHAHAHHAAHA

Dishonored kind of just makes me wanna replay Deus Ex HR to be honest. Dishonored feels a bit... conflicted with itself in a weird way. It gives you all this stuff, but obviously nudges you to be stealthy which is fine, but it's just weird. I think in some ways it tries to play both sides a bit too much without completely knowing what it wants to really be. I mean, I guess I could limit myself in a lot of ways but yeah. I'm going for mostly passive powers as well. It just doesn't feel as balanced as the Deus Ex games or System Shock 2 to me, and it's not quite Thief since Thief is completely minimalistic and you either stay in the shadows or die.

Still pretty early in though, probably just need to get a good grasp of how I want to approach it.

The most annoying thing about XCOM is that the aliens get an extra turn as soon as you spot them. I can't see any justification for Firaxis to add that rule. It removes any incentive to flank or surprise your opponent. Tactically there's no benefit to approaching a hidden enemy behind cover from the side instead of the front, since the they can just run behind a new cover upon your approach.

Dishonored kind of just makes me wanna replay Deus Ex HR to be honest. Dishonored feels a bit... conflicted with itself in a weird way. It gives you all this stuff, but obviously nudges you to be stealthy which is fine, but it's just weird. I think in some ways it tries to play both sides a bit too much without completely knowing what it wants to really be. I mean, I guess I could limit myself in a lot of ways but yeah. I'm going for mostly passive powers as well. It just doesn't feel as balanced as the Deus Ex games or System Shock 2 to me, and it's not quite Thief since Thief is completely minimalistic and you either stay in the shadows or die.

Still pretty early in though, probably just need to get a good grasp of how I want to approach it.

Well I just felt Dishonored tries to give you many solutions to one problem. It always lets one skill or technique be useful for a situation. One thing that worries about me in Dishonored is if you can get OP very easily. Even with difficulty turned up. I don't think it'll matter.

Cause after the second mission I already have my possession ability maxed out. And the first level of possession was great. Being a rat and sneaking around. That's loads of fun. But when it's maxed out and you can possess anything, it becomes a lot easier. And this is me only past Mission 2. I did all the subquests and found all the items in the mission which let you have enough to max out one skill tree.

But if there are like 10 missions, at this rate I'm gonna have all my powers maxed out and the game will be a joke. I hope Mission 2 was just a bit of a boost so you can customize your character and runes actually become very scarce, forcing you to choose upgrade paths more wisely. Either that or the game's difficulty goes up that you will have to strategically use all your maxed out skills. But still I prefer to be forced to choose an upgrade path and character play style.

And suppose there aren't a lot of missions but only like 4. That means the game is way too short. So it might mean that I can't upgrade everything, but it'll be just way too short. The only way this game can be like perfect now is for runes and charms to be very scarce with tons of missions or else it becomes too easy. Or maybe there's like 10 more skill tress that will come along. That'll work too.

Right now, I'm thinking I want to either stop time or boost my teleporting some. Blink is such a great skill that I often use. Before that though, I want the first level of being able to see in the dark.

So far Dishonored seems like the type of game that falls just a little bit short of being as good as Bioshock. But it's still pretty good.

For starters, I didn't complain about lack of realism. Believe me, if there's anything I despise in games, it's the ones that try hard to simulate real life. Realism rarely, if ever, equals fun in games. Having said that, before we talk mechanics, let me first say that I spoke too soon about the lack of immersion. Now that I've spent a few more hours with the game, I must say that I'm going to have to agree with you. It's immersive, just in a slightly different kind of way from the old games, so let's leave it at that. (To put it as briefly as possible: if they were movies, the old games would be horror/thriller, while EU would be more like fast-paced action... dunno if that makes any sense to you).

yentass wrote:

See how much opportunity for a truly tactical and smart play is there, as opposed to "arm 20 soldiers to their teeth as long as they can carry it, then proceed"?

Well, they are soldiers, not ballet dancers. Plus, it's not like you could carry one item of everything like you're trying to describe it. You still had to specialize your soldiers. With a squad of 8, you could still have 3 light scouts with flares, smoke grenades, medkit, scanner, and lots of TUs, then 2 armored assault guys with autorifles and HE grenades, 1 cannon sniper with really good aim from long range, 1 bombardier with rockets to punch holes in stuff, and 1 stunner at the flank in case you wanted to sneak in and capture someone. What I'm really trying to say though, is that you just had more freedom to do whatever you wanted to do with your own equipment. Say the stunner or the scout died. Why should that prevent anyone on the team from going to their corpses and picking up the stun gun or the medkit? Sure, since it wouldn't be their specialty you could give them a usage penalty for those items, but to outright disallow scavenging for example, even as a game mechanic, is not nearly as fun or challenging as doing everything you can to salvage your mission when things go tits up (and they do, regardless of your choices and how skilled you are).

By the way, the leniency in the burden limit you speak of in the old game is because the plasma weapons were made to be lighter than all the others, and because armor weight didn't factor in. Compare that with the loadout concept of ET for example, where you still had the freedom of full customization (with a much wider variety of stuff), but heavier armor forced you to carry less. It's a system that's flexible and makes sense without breaking game balance, by preventing the godlike walking battleship soldiers of doom.

Expedience wrote:

The most annoying thing about XCOM is that the aliens get an extra turn as soon as you spot them. I can't see any justification for Firaxis to add that rule. It removes any incentive to flank or surprise your opponent. Tactically there's no benefit to approaching a hidden enemy behind cover from the side instead of the front, since the they can just run behind a new cover upon your approach.

The reason it's so is just to make the game more challenging. In parallel to this though, and another nitpick at game mechanics: Stealth. As Expedience pointed out, it's absolutely impossible to sneak up on enemies to kill or stun them. That was a crucial, intense, and very fun aspect of the old games, where sometimes you had to sneak up to a lobsterman navigator for example, stun him, grab him and GTFO before the others would find you, or before he'd wake up, because your equipment is still too puny to let you confront all of them head-on. Kind of like an against-all-odds kidnapping special op to get important technology unlocked, with big satisfying rewards upon success. Unfortunately, because stealth is non-existent in EU, no such thing is similar in experience.

yentass wrote:

Overall, I get a gist from your post that you were expecting a 1:1 remake out of this game, an attitude I run into way more often than I'd like to admit and completely fail to understand. I mean - if you want a direct remake, why not play UFO Defense instead? If you want the original but with different maps - why not play Terror from the Deep? Or Extraterrestrials? Or the up and coming Xenonauts? What Firaxis did to the X-COM franchise with XCOM: EU is similar to what Yager did to Spec Ops with Spec Ops: The Line - they took the IP along with its core elements, and essentially made their own game out of them, something I'd expect from any development company with dignity. The only issues I have with the game are purely technical (bugs and at times crappy UI), and I'll say it with zero hyperbole in mind - I'm looking at my personal GOTY here, and can't simply think of any other game that might potentially topple it.

No, I wasn't expecting a spitting image remake, nor did I ask for one for that matter. As I've said, I'm happy with the game as it is. Sure, I'm a tiny bit disappointed with the absence of some things, but so far it's not detracting from my overall enjoyment of the game. Take my complaints as nitpicks, not damning criticism. It's not like they're major irredeemable flaws or anything, just a few things that IMHO would've made the game better than it already is.

The most annoying thing about XCOM is that the aliens get an extra turn as soon as you spot them. I can't see any justification for Firaxis to add that rule. It removes any incentive to flank or surprise your opponent. Tactically there's no benefit to approaching a hidden enemy behind cover from the side instead of the front, since the they can just run behind a new cover upon your approach.

Sorry for being so annoying about that game, but here's another example for a misunderstood mechanic. Unless on a terror mission, the enemies usually ambulate in clusters and in the open. If they weren't given a free turn, the game would simply become a massive target practice since you could either use explosives to damage the entire squad easily or take free shots with elevated hit and critical chances due to them not being behind cover, and where's the fun in that. That leaves us with only two options - you either allow a "free turn" for them to assume positions behind cover or already find them in one, so there's virtually no difference between the two except a perceptional one (although if your complaint was about not being able to catch an enemy unprepared by blindsiding him in his already assumed cover, I feel I can agree with that to some extent). Plus, the "free turn" is quite a misnomer in this case, since they can only assume cover at this point without firing back, so as long as you play properly, you'll always have the first shot (and thus offering you certain advantage as opposed to a pure carte blanche), whether in the traditional sense or via overwatch, since they are forced to run in the open for a while.

Plus, the "free turn" is quite a misnomer in this case, since they can only assume cover at this point without firing back, so as long as you play properly, you'll always have the first shot (and thus offering you certain advantage as opposed to a pure carte blanche), whether in the traditional sense or via overwatch, since they are forced to run in the open for a while.

I've definitely seen enemies getting behind cover and firing in the same move after they're 'disturbed'.

Dishonored kind of just makes me wanna replay Deus Ex HR to be honest. Dishonored feels a bit... conflicted with itself in a weird way. It gives you all this stuff, but obviously nudges you to be stealthy which is fine, but it's just weird. I think in some ways it tries to play both sides a bit too much without completely knowing what it wants to really be. I mean, I guess I could limit myself in a lot of ways but yeah. I'm going for mostly passive powers as well. It just doesn't feel as balanced as the Deus Ex games or System Shock 2 to me, and it's not quite Thief since Thief is completely minimalistic and you either stay in the shadows or die.

Still pretty early in though, probably just need to get a good grasp of how I want to approach it.

Well I just felt Dishonored tries to give you many solutions to one problem. It always lets one skill or technique be useful for a situation. One thing that worries about me in Dishonored is if you can get OP very easily. Even with difficulty turned up. I don't think it'll matter.

Cause after the second mission I already have my possession ability maxed out. And the first level of possession was great. Being a rat and sneaking around. That's loads of fun. But when it's maxed out and you can possess anything, it becomes a lot easier. And this is me only past Mission 2. I did all the subquests and found all the items in the mission which let you have enough to max out one skill tree.

But if there are like 10 missions, at this rate I'm gonna have all my powers maxed out and the game will be a joke. I hope Mission 2 was just a bit of a boost so you can customize your character and runes actually become very scarce, forcing you to choose upgrade paths more wisely. Either that or the game's difficulty goes up that you will have to strategically use all your maxed out skills. But still I prefer to be forced to choose an upgrade path and character play style.

And suppose there aren't a lot of missions but only like 4. That means the game is way too short. So it might mean that I can't upgrade everything, but it'll be just way too short. The only way this game can be like perfect now is for runes and charms to be very scarce with tons of missions or else it becomes too easy. Or maybe there's like 10 more skill tress that will come along. That'll work too.

Right now, I'm thinking I want to either stop time or boost my teleporting some. Blink is such a great skill that I often use. Before that though, I want the first level of being able to see in the dark.

So far Dishonored seems like the type of game that falls just a little bit short of being as good as Bioshock. But it's still pretty good.

What does OP stand for? Playing the game on hard, some of the runes can be tricky to get. At least on the 3rd mission, which I've yet to complete due to sort of screwing myself over.Well, the autosave screwed me over. Hey, let's not save when you find the room with all the money, a rune and a bonecharm, but we will save right after you fuck up and make the mission essentially impossible. The fact that I'm not more pissed about this is a testament to the quality of the game.

It was designed for multiple playthroughs, which is why I'm trying to play as little mix and match as possible. Two playthroughs, two play styles, almost like two games. At least, that's how I'm looking at it.

But I do wish the console version had better graphics.

_________________

John_Sunlight wrote:

Also to the guy who won't check out something amateurish: how are you into metal??

To put it as briefly as possible: if they were movies, the old games would be horror/thriller, while EU would be more like fast-paced action... dunno if that makes any sense to you.

Totally does. I think every review I read makes a similar point (I think a shout-out for both composers is due here for perfectly capturing the atmosphere with the music).

kingnuuuur wrote:

Well, they are soldiers, not ballet dancers. Plus, it's not like you could carry one item of everything like you're trying to describe it. You still had to specialize your soldiers. With a squad of 8, you could still have 3 light scouts with flares, smoke grenades, medkit, scanner, and lots of TUs, then 2 armored assault guys with autorifles and HE grenades, 1 cannon sniper with really good aim from long range, 1 bombardier with rockets to punch holes in stuff, and 1 stunner at the flank in case you wanted to sneak in and capture someone. What I'm really trying to say though, is that you just had more freedom to do whatever you wanted to do with your own equipment. Say the stunner or the scout died. Why should that prevent anyone on the team from going to their corpses and picking up the stun gun or the medkit? Sure, since it wouldn't be their specialty you could give them a usage penalty for those items, but to outright disallow scavenging for example, even as a game mechanic, is not nearly as fun or challenging as doing everything you can to salvage your mission when things go tits up (and they do, regardless of your choices and how skilled you are).

That's not what I was trying to describe though - I didn't mean you could bring everything and your mother for the big cocks in my ass, but you definitely could usually bring enough to switch "class" at least once if the need occurred. That "freedom" you've mentioned is key here - UFO Defense was essentially a big playground for you to fuck around and amuse yourself. You could go as tactical as you liked too while still having a a solid chance of winning as long as you didn't play stupid. For example, compare your playthrough to mine - I didn't fire a single rocket right until the blasters came by and won the game by relying mostly on laser pistols and trophy plasma guns (later in the game) and auto fire. Flares? what flares? What does TU even mean..? Oh, and I equipped HE on the very last mission for the very first time, all primed to zero so if a crysalid would down one of my soldiers, it would kill both him and the zombie. That never worked. It did work in a different, glorious and epic context but that's a story for another time. But I digress - it was an example that the game could be won by entirely different ways and different degrees of tactic approach (which obviously isn't a bad thing). This game, however, puts great emphasis on a "choice and consequence" gameplay and basically telling you "get tactic-y or die" since working with limited and restricted resources is in some ways a truer (but definitely less fun) form of tactical thought. With all that in mind, the inventory system isn't entirely out of place in this game in my opinion, not because of the disability to pick up your downed soldiers' stuff ("oh, you needed these medikits? Tough titty, should have retreated this soldier to safety instead of taking that 40% shot"), but rather because you also can't retrieve the alien weaponry and corpses/stunned bodies you rightfully deserve if an emergency bounce is needed. And if we're already there, here's a mechanic that doesn't make sense - if your squad dies you do retrieve their stuff but not the alien artifacts you've managed to control. It should be all or nothing, buddy.

kingnuuuur wrote:

As Expedience pointed out, it's absolutely impossible to sneak up on enemies to kill or stun them.

That's not entirely true. For starters, I think we all can agree that sneaking shouldn't be possible in an open field. Right? Right. With that established, I must share from my observations that the AI does play smart (especially on Classical/Impossible, where the AI restrictions on certain alien types are lifted), but isn't cheating in the process - that is, if one of your units is out of enemy LOS, it would act as if it doesn't know it's there. Bear that in mind when you run into a long wall without windows, or a side of a truck or whatever that has multiple "full cover" spots in a row without any holes or windows in them. Also... well, I'll let you guys reach that point by yourselves.

kingnuuuur wrote:

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some zombies to take care of.

My, your first terror clusterfuck? Please do. Bear in mind that unattended zombies hatch crysalids, civilians aren't worth losing a soldier, it's always better to fail a mission than abort it (you lose all your soldiers on a terror mission in either case) panic-wise, and that I totally told you to switch to normal difficulty.

Expedience wrote:

I've definitely seen enemies getting behind cover and firing in the same move after they're 'disturbed'.

Then either memory fails you (sure the "disturbance" move wasn't your last in a turn?), or you ran into a bug. I don't remember a single occurrence of that, even on Classic difficulty.

Dishonored kind of just makes me wanna replay Deus Ex HR to be honest. Dishonored feels a bit... conflicted with itself in a weird way. It gives you all this stuff, but obviously nudges you to be stealthy which is fine, but it's just weird. I think in some ways it tries to play both sides a bit too much without completely knowing what it wants to really be. I mean, I guess I could limit myself in a lot of ways but yeah. I'm going for mostly passive powers as well. It just doesn't feel as balanced as the Deus Ex games or System Shock 2 to me, and it's not quite Thief since Thief is completely minimalistic and you either stay in the shadows or die.

Still pretty early in though, probably just need to get a good grasp of how I want to approach it.

What, seriously? Deus Ex HR had terrible balance. There were hardly any non-hacking, non-stealth augs, and aside from a few most of the others were gimmicky (like the one that let you break down walls, but only in a handful of specific places). The stealth ones you hardly even needed to stealth. All you really needed to do was sneak up on guys and headshot them with the pistol.

_________________

MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

That's not what I was trying to describe though - I didn't mean you could bring everything and your mother for the big cocks in my ass, but you definitely could usually bring enough to switch "class" at least once if the need occurred. That "freedom" you've mentioned is key here - UFO Defense was essentially a big playground for you to fuck around and amuse yourself. You could go as tactical as you liked too while still having a a solid chance of winning as long as you didn't play stupid. For example, compare your playthrough to mine - I didn't fire a single rocket right until the blasters came by and won the game by relying mostly on laser pistols and trophy plasma guns (later in the game) and auto fire. Flares? what flares? What does TU even mean..? Oh, and I equipped HE on the very last mission for the very first time, all primed to zero so if a crysalid would down one of my soldiers, it would kill both him and the zombie. That never worked. It did work in a different, glorious and epic context but that's a story for another time. But I digress - it was an example that the game could be won by entirely different ways and different degrees of tactic approach (which obviously isn't a bad thing). This game, however, puts great emphasis on a "choice and consequence" gameplay and basically telling you "get tactic-y or die" since working with limited and restricted resources is in some ways a truer (but definitely less fun) form of tactical thought. With all that in mind, the inventory system isn't entirely out of place in this game in my opinion, not because of the disability to pick up your downed soldiers' stuff ("oh, you needed these medikits? Tough titty, should have retreated this soldier to safety instead of taking that 40% shot"), but rather because you also can't retrieve the alien weaponry and corpses/stunned bodies you rightfully deserve if an emergency bounce is needed. And if we're already there, here's a mechanic that doesn't make sense - if your squad dies you do retrieve their stuff but not the alien artifacts you've managed to control. It should be all or nothing, buddy.

TU means Time Units. I'll admit that the first game was kind of unbalanced in your favour. Lasers were too awesome, you didn't even need plasma, and let's not talk about the blaster launcher. Flares I mostly used in TFTD, when the terror or artifact missions had to be done in the dark, which is basically a death sentence. Grenades and their proximity versions (yet another thing missing in EU) were just too good not to use.I think your stuff getting back to you after your squad gets wiped out was either an oversight or done out of mercy. I also don't agree with the all-or-nothing bit. I can live with auto-exploding alien weaponry, that's fine to me as a plot point and as a game mechanic. Your items though, they don't explode, and not being able to scavenge some of them as per tradition, even at a cost, is really nothing more than a way to needlessly make the game even more unforgiving than it already is, while at the same time depriving you of one more way to have fun without breaking the game... But whatever, we could harp all day on game balance and nonsensicality. I just think that they could've done more with such a system, instead of "eat your shit and don't say that you didn't see a flying snakeman coming".

yentass wrote:

That's not entirely true. For starters, I think we all can agree that sneaking shouldn't be possible in an open field. Right? Right. With that established, I must share from my observations that the AI does play smart (especially on Classical/Impossible, where the AI restrictions on certain alien types are lifted), but isn't cheating in the process - that is, if one of your units is out of enemy LOS, it would act as if it doesn't know it's there. Bear that in mind when you run into a long wall without windows, or a side of a truck or whatever that has multiple "full cover" spots in a row without any holes or windows in them. Also... well, I'll let you guys reach that point by yourselves.

Yeah, the AI can be really murderous. I'm playing Classic, fighting mutons on one of the train maps, and out of nowhere another pack of unseen mutons hurled grenades at me from the other side of a wagon, without having made visual contact with my units. Bitches.

yentass wrote:

My, your first terror clusterfuck? Please do. Bear in mind that unattended zombies hatch crysalids, civilians aren't worth losing a soldier, it's always better to fail a mission than abort it (you lose all your soldiers on a terror mission in either case) panic-wise, and that I totally told you to switch to normal difficulty.

lol it wasn't a terror mission. It was some downed UFO that was filled to the brim with Chryssalids. This might surprise you, but I found terror missions to be the easiest thing in the game. Most of the time, all the baddies come charging at me while I do nothing but reaction fire them till kingdom come. I don't think I've ever lost anyone on those.

A ship filled with cryssalids? Here's something I don't recall running into. Must've been a terror ship. And don't jinx yourself there bud, because I don't know how many terror missions have you done (I bet on two), but the charging baddies will soon grow from a calm target practice into a living nightmare. A recent terror mission which I've won just by discovering a bug and promptly exploiting it springs to mind - you know what my total body count was? Twenty and fucking three (obviously taking converted civs into account), and I could swear that between 15 and 20 of them attacked me at the same fucking time, just because my squad of veterans decided this mission was the best of times to stop hitting things.

Dishonored kind of just makes me wanna replay Deus Ex HR to be honest. Dishonored feels a bit... conflicted with itself in a weird way. It gives you all this stuff, but obviously nudges you to be stealthy which is fine, but it's just weird. I think in some ways it tries to play both sides a bit too much without completely knowing what it wants to really be. I mean, I guess I could limit myself in a lot of ways but yeah. I'm going for mostly passive powers as well. It just doesn't feel as balanced as the Deus Ex games or System Shock 2 to me, and it's not quite Thief since Thief is completely minimalistic and you either stay in the shadows or die.

Still pretty early in though, probably just need to get a good grasp of how I want to approach it.

What, seriously? Deus Ex HR had terrible balance. There were hardly any non-hacking, non-stealth augs, and aside from a few most of the others were gimmicky (like the one that let you break down walls, but only in a handful of specific places). The stealth ones you hardly even needed to stealth. All you really needed to do was sneak up on guys and headshot them with the pistol.

Probably should've elaborated, it's not really just stealth I was thinking of, but everything. I can just see myself enjoying replays of HR more than Dishonored. To sum it up initially I thought I was more excited about it than Bioschok Infinite, but I think it's completely the opposite now and I'll probably end up liking Infinite more, I can smell it.

What does OP stand for? Playing the game on hard, some of the runes can be tricky to get. At least on the 3rd mission, which I've yet to complete due to sort of screwing myself over.Well, the autosave screwed me over. Hey, let's not save when you find the room with all the money, a rune and a bonecharm, but we will save right after you fuck up and make the mission essentially impossible. The fact that I'm not more pissed about this is a testament to the quality of the game.

It was designed for multiple playthroughs, which is why I'm trying to play as little mix and match as possible. Two playthroughs, two play styles, almost like two games. At least, that's how I'm looking at it.

But I do wish the console version had better graphics.

OP means overpowered. So if at the end of the 2nd mission I already have possession maxed, then it's worrying that I'll be overpowered for the rest of the game. Adding in other runes and powers I'll get and it feels like I'll dominate for the next mission.

But we'll see. I probably won't be playing this again in awhile since Dark Souls DLC comes out soon. That's my number 1 priority there.

What, seriously? Deus Ex HR had terrible balance. There were hardly any non-hacking, non-stealth augs, and aside from a few most of the others were gimmicky (like the one that let you break down walls, but only in a handful of specific places). The stealth ones you hardly even needed to stealth. All you really needed to do was sneak up on guys and headshot them with the pistol.

Probably should've elaborated, it's not really just stealth I was thinking of, but everything. I can just see myself enjoying replays of HR more than Dishonored. To sum it up initially I thought I was more excited about it than Bioschok Infinite, but I think it's completely the opposite now and I'll probably end up liking Infinite more, I can smell it.

I dunno, I just don't see what is to be gained from replaying Deus Ex HR, though I did enjoy it. There aren't wildly different playstyles to try, and all the endings sucked equally. But Bioshock Infinite does look fucking cool, I have to admit. I was initially skeptical, but I really dig the setting now that they've expanded upon it. George Washington Terminators? Hell yes! I have high hopes for the game and might even get it upon release.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

But Bioshock Infinite does look fucking cool, I have to admit. I was initially skeptical, but I really dig the setting now that they've expanded upon it. George Washington Terminators? Hell yes! I have high hopes for the game and might even get it upon release.

You might want to check this site. If you preorder it from there, you'll can get either a $10 cash-back or a $15 worth in GMG credit AND there's a 20%-off voucher you can use on top of it all. I'll save you the math - $38 if you go cash-back, $33 if you choose credit instead (which I would recommend in case you tend to preorder Steamworks digital games).

The deal might seem lucrative, but hell, it's 2K - you're likely to see a 50% off deal within months after release, so bear that in mind. If you, however, think of taking that offer, let me know and I'll shoot you a referral link.

P.S: Oh, news flash - the Artorias of the Abyss DLC for Dark Souls is now available for you consolers as well. Just in case the Morrigans among you didn't already know.

A ship filled with cryssalids? Here's something I don't recall running into. Must've been a terror ship. And don't jinx yourself there bud, because I don't know how many terror missions have you done (I bet on two), but the charging baddies will soon grow from a calm target practice into a living nightmare. A recent terror mission which I've won just by discovering a bug and promptly exploiting it springs to mind - you know what my total body count was? Twenty and fucking three (obviously taking converted civs into account), and I could swear that between 15 and 20 of them attacked me at the same fucking time, just because my squad of veterans decided this mission was the best of times to stop hitting things.

Well I've played 5 or 6 terror missions and never had that happen. The only one that gave me problems was the one with the first Sectopod. Goddamn. I think they're bugged though, because when I threw a battle scanner at them and sniped them from safe distance, they never seemed to do anything about it.For chryssalids, I found the best thing to do was to put your soldiers in a ladder-like formation to avoid that stupid overwatch moment when they're like "OK GUYS, THERE'S 6 OF US AND 12 OF THEM, SO JUST FOCUS FIRE ON ONE, OK??". Put your assault guy up in front, the supports right behind him, and the snipers last. It helps to have skills like Sentinel, CCS, Rocketeer, In The Zone (!!!), and of course plasma weaponry, and maybe a chitin plating on the assault.

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the short piano roll motif that plays whenever you spot thin men or sectoids is actually a reversed version of the one you hear in TFTD's underwater missions?

You might want to check this site. If you preorder it from there, you'll can get either a $10 cash-back or a $15 worth in GMG credit AND there's a 20%-off voucher you can use on top of it all. I'll save you the math - $38 if you go cash-back, $33 if you choose credit instead (which I would recommend in case you tend to preorder Steamworks digital games).

It says "vouchers not valid on this product" right on the page there.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Well I've played 5 or 6 terror missions and never had that happen. The only one that gave me problems was the one with the first Sectopod. Goddamn. I think they're bugged though, because when I threw a battle scanner at them and sniped them from safe distance, they never seemed to do anything about it.For chryssalids, I found the best thing to do was to put your soldiers in a ladder-like formation to avoid that stupid overwatch moment when they're like "OK GUYS, THERE'S 6 OF US AND 12 OF THEM, SO JUST FOCUS FIRE ON ONE, OK??". Put your assault guy up in front, the supports right behind him, and the snipers last. It helps to have skills like Sentinel, CCS, Rocketeer, In The Zone (!!!), and of course plasma weaponry, and maybe a chitin plating on the assault.

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the short piano roll motif that plays whenever you spot thin men or sectoids is actually a reversed version of the one you hear in TFTD's underwater missions?

Hmm. Kinda makes me think that you and I play different Classic modes. Maybe all the rumors about the difficulty automatically ramping up once you beat the game once regardless of your choice do hold water in the end.

About the sectopod - well, I don't know if it's a bug really, since Battle Scanner doesn't count as alien discovery as of now. He has another bug though - at times, grenades chucked at him will not register damage unless you fire a rocket first. But yeah, definitely an OP motherfucker. Cryssalids basically become a non-issue once you get the plasma weapons, unless you decide to willingly feed your troops to them (true story).

Oh, and if we're speaking of bugs - there are very rare instances where you'll be presented with a tactical mission and an interception mission at the same time. DO ONE AT A TIME! Otherwise (that is, if you send a skyranger and an interceptor simultaneously), the game will lock you out at some point.

failsafeman wrote:

It says "vouchers not valid on this product" right on the page there.

Well, either it was added later or I just looked over it yesterday, so I apologize.

i've never really looked at this section of the forum, and i found this thread.

I'm a huge fan of old school games and consoles. gotta pretty good setup with a NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Master System, Megadrive, Atari Lynx and even an original gameboy!

anyone else get into these much? (Mainly Nes, Snes & N64). or if anyone has any PAL versions of stuff for sale let me know, i'd even consider trading rare metal items for certain games i am trying to find.

lately me and some mates have been getting into mortal kombat II & 3 on SNES, Aladdin, Megaman, Battletoads (IMPOSSIBLE GAME!) and as always NBA Hangtime on N64. Slowly hammering away at both Zelda games on N64, fuck they are big games! still trying to get zelda on snes though.

Just get a Wii and get them off the Virtual Console, man. Seems a bit pointless to track down this old stuff and get them at collector's price when most of those are available for a quick cheap download that also gives some money to the developers. Not that Nintendo or Capcom or whoever are strapped for cash, but you know, since you don't seem to want to just emulate them, might as well support the devs rather than some random guy on eBay. Many Sega games are also available super cheap on Steam.

Hmm. Kinda makes me think that you and I play different Classic modes. Maybe all the rumors about the difficulty automatically ramping up once you beat the game once regardless of your choice do hold water in the end.

Don't know about that. I've finished the game today, and I'm kind of surprised at how short and straightforward it was, especially the last mission (well, the one thing that wasn't so straightforward was the Ethereal leader's constant mumbling about gifts and party tricks and telekinetically baking pizzas... or whatever the hell he was talking about). Overall though, it's pretty solid, but I have to say that the snipers made it way too easy, so much that I've never even bothered to use psionics (I've only had 2 psi soldiers out of 14 anyway, one with a shitty combination of abilities).

Will I be playing it again anytime soon? Maybe. At least I want to see what Impossible difficulty is like. Also, I got a very sudden craving for Interceptor from it...

nah not really man, mainly looking for old nintendo stuff and a bit of sega stuff!

Cool. I wish I had my genesis stuff from back in the day. I have Soul Reaver and Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. If you're at all interested in SA, everything I've read says all the digital versions are bad ports. I can't bring myself to part with the hardware, though.

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John_Sunlight wrote:

Also to the guy who won't check out something amateurish: how are you into metal??

Yeah there's a few that would be pretty sweet to put on my wii down on the big screen, but if you saw my collection you'd understand why i want to continue it! Besides, why collect 1st press vinyls and cds when there's re-releases or downloads!?! It's like collecting anything. Gotta get the old mortal kombats onto the big screen tv though!

Like i said anyone with any old NES, SNES, N64 & Megadrive games that wanna part with them, let me know what ya got and i'll send my trade-list of cds and vinyls. The games listed above are my main priorites.

I've tried garage/yard sales, not much luck yet, a couple of weeks ago i went to one and the lady said she had an atari with 10 games and a NES with 10 games but sold them the day before for $20 each!! i was a bit shattered. It's fucked to think about how much of this stuff woulda been thrown out over the time, even now i bet parents spring cleanin out the house throw heaps out not knowing what it really is & worth!

Good fucking question. I'm going to venture that the collector mentality is inherently irrational and that people should care about the contents of the music and the fun of actually playing the games, but I suspect people wouldn't take kindly to being told that... *shrugs*

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Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

you can debate the actual date that metal began, but a fairly agreed upon date is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

Extreme_violence wrote:

Why Iron maiden is there? It's very far to be metal than a lot of some metal band.